[.ca] Vivien: The Life of Vivien Leigh (ISBN 0802132596)

a tad disappointing:
As a fan of Vivien Leigh, I was hoping for a biography that would delve more into her personal life. Instead, it dragged with pages and pages dedicated to mostly her career. However, if you can breeze through the boring parts, the rest is worth it.

Vivien Leigh Was Too Vibrant For A Book This Dull!:
This book drags on and on for pages and is written in a fussy style that gets irritating after awhile. No gossip, no juicy tidbits, devotes too much time to her stage career and tells nothing of interest about the most beautiful actress the screen has ever known. The author repeatedly reminds the reader about Vivien's fondness for gin and tonics, and believe me, you WILL need a few to get through this.

More than Scarlett:
Extrordinary biography on a very interesting person. I've read many books on famous actors and this is one of my favorites. Vivien was a very driven, kind, and beautiful person that was haunted by many adversities untill her untimley death from tuberculosis.

A life in turmoil:
"Vivien" is proof positive that there can be a well-written, well-researched, realistic yet understanding biography of a messed-up star. This book could have been a sordid tangle of tabloid sensationalism, but Alexander Walker carefully crafts it into a tapestry. Vivien Leigh was one of the most memorable actresses of the twentieth century, playing the headstrong Scarlett O'Hara. Yet Vivien was not as strong or indomitable as she appeared onscreen. The book starts with a poetic interlude during a peaceful time in her life, with several guests attending a dinner, then shifts back to her girlhood. Her first marriage fell as her fame rose, and she soon met the man she would fall in love with, her also-married costar Lawrence Olivier. But Vivien's life, despite her fame and idyllic life, was never a happy woman, her mental problems plaguing her to the end of her life. Very few authors are able to strike a balance between admiration and reality; they'll either idolize the object of their biography, or pour vitriol on them. Walker does neither. While he acknowledges Vivien's faults, he also seems to care about her and her struggles. Nothing could more poignantly convey Vivien's pain than when she shrieked at a nurse, "I'm not Scarlett, I'm Blanche!" (Blanche being a character she played who went mad). Vivien herself is a vivid presence from the first pages onward. Her struggles with mental illness are done with great delicacy, as is her relationship with Olivier. He himself is almost as strong a presence, even though he ultimately could not stay with her; another impressive real-life presence is Jack Merivale, the understanding younger man who remained with her until her untimely death. The scene where Merivale brings Olivier to his dead ex-wife's beside is another extremely effective anecdote. The writing style is lush for a biography. Quite uniquely, there is also a lot of focus on Vivien's movies as well as her personal life, especially her dogged pursuit of roles that she desperately wanted to play. The pictures are well-suited for this book -- they're clear, elegant, well-laid out, relevant to the different parts of Vivien's life, and balanced well between her on-screen roles and her personal life. Walker keeps these pictures of her roles grounded by mentioning what was going on in Vivien's life while she filmed the movie. Alexander Walker's biography of Vivien Leigh is a treasure for all of her fans. Without being sordid ior adoring, he creates a believable biography about a troubled, talented and passionate actress. Outstanding read.

A Must Read for All Vivien Leigh Fans:
Even though this actress is known to the world from her role as Scarlet O'Hara, many do not know the woman behind the role. This biography does an excellent job of giving her fans a chance to know who she was. I would recommend this to both Vivien Leigh fans and anyone who enjoys a good book. Her life even though not always a fairy tale, was very interesting and Alexander Walker hold the readers attention with ease.